Rep. Espaillat Responds to Trump's Return
( Spencer Platt / Getty Images )
U.S. Representative Adriano Espaillat (D, NY-13), talks about how he plans to resist Trump's plans for "mass deportation," and shares other priorities of Democrats in Congress, especially as they are facing the next Trump term, and the potential of Republicans holding on to the House majority.
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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. America voted for change. You're going to get change. Here are a few examples of how much change is going to come or that there now might be policy debates about. Last night, President-elect Trump announced he would nominate Iraq and Afghanistan war vet Pete Hegseth, best known as a Fox News host, to be defense secretary. On a podcast last Thursday, Hegseth said this about one way he would like to bring the military back to an old way of doing things.
Pete Hegseth: I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn't made us more effective, hasn't made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.
Brian Lehrer: America, are we ready to kick women out of eligibility for combat roles? Here comes that debate apparently. Also yesterday, Trump announced the creation of a new Department of Government Efficiency to be led by Elon Musk and former Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy. Remember him? Here's Ramaswamy from the closing statement in one of last year's Republican primary debates, referencing what he says are the nation's unifying common ideals.
Vivek Ramaswamy: This is our moment to revive those common ideals. God is real. There are two genders. Fossil fuels are a requirement for human prosperity.
Brian Lehrer: I don't remember the fossil fuels or only two genders parts of the Declaration of Independence. I'll have to go back and re-read it. What do we learn from that clip? That it's not just about the issue in that campaign commercial, the one that had Harris supporting transgender surgeries for incarcerated people. A taxpayer expense. Here is a top Trump nominee saying no to trans or non-binary people as real human beings at all. There are only two genders.
How might this relate to a Department of Government Efficiency? Well, for example, Project 2025 denounces what it calls "gender ideology" and calls for no more enforcement of anti-discrimination protections in many government programs for trans individuals in government-funded roles. I guess it's one way the government could save money that the incoming government efficiency department may well look at. America, are we ready for that debate?
Another one, also from yesterday's appointment list. There were a lot of these yesterday. Trump tagged former Arkansas governor and leading political evangelical Mike Huckabee for ambassador to Israel. Heads up, those of you who support a two-state solution, which is probably most of you. A Gallup poll this year found majority support for that as it has usually found over the last 30 years. Sorry, two-state solution backers. Here's Huckabee during the first Trump presidency in 2017, referring to what people usually call the West Bank.
Mike Huckabee: My feelings personally, and I'm speaking only as a person, I think Israel would only be acting on the property it already owns. I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria. There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It's Judea and Samaria. There's no such thing as a settlement, their communities, their neighborhoods, their cities. There's no such thing as an occupation. They get out of their minds that people are living in lean-tos and tents, sleeping in cars circled around a tree. They're living in very well-designed and beautiful cities and communities. Can't wait to get back. I'm going to take an extra hat. I'm going to get it to President-elect Trump. Build Israel great again.
[applause]
Mike Huckabee: Who knows? We may see him wear this out there in one of his rallies somewhere. I don't know. Can't promise that. I can only promise, he will get a copy of the hat. Thank you very much.
[applause]
Brian Lehrer: Mike Huckabee. There are actually two clips in there. The one that I was drawing attention to was the first one from 2017, when he was speaking about there being no such thing as the West Bank. Mike Huckabee about to be ambassador to Israel. Are we ready for a US government that supports annexation of the West Bank based on references in the Bible?
Maybe Huckabee and Trump will propose that based on that clip. One more. This is Elon Musk himself, apparently about to become literally the secretary of government efficiency. The current federal budget is around $6.5 trillion a year. Here's Musk with the head of Trump's transition team, Howard Lutnick. At Trump's Madison Square Garden rally, Lutnick asks him this.
Howard Lutnick: How much do you think we can rip out of this wasted $6.5 trillion Harris-Biden budget?
Elon Musk: Well, I think we can do at least $2 trillion.
Howard Lutnick: Yes.
[crowd cheers]
Elon Musk: Yes.
Howard Lutnick: $2 trillion.
Brian Lehrer: What would it mean to federal government services for your family or anyone else to cut a third or more of all government spending? America voted for change. You're going to get change. There, you have a few examples of how much change is going to come or that there might now be policy debates about. Of course, there's the mass deportation policy that was the centerpiece of the Trump campaign.
Joining me now, New York City Congressman Adriano Espaillat, a Democrat who was the first Dominican American and first formerly undocumented American to be elected to Congress. Espaillat was just re-elected overwhelmingly, more than 80% of the vote from his district, which covers most of Manhattan above 96th Street and the West Bronx neighborhoods of Kingsbridge, Fordham, Bedford Park, and University Heights. His district includes some of the neighborhoods, those neighborhoods, that had the biggest gains for Donald Trump compared to 2020 in addition to overwhelmingly re-electing the congressman. Congressman, congratulations on your re-election and welcome back to WNYC.
Congressman Adriano Espaillat: Thank you, Brian. Thank you for having me, yes.
Brian Lehrer: Let me start with those other results from your district. Our local news website, Gothamist, made a map of parts of the city that move the most or the least toward Trump in the election. Your district includes some that move the most toward him, like a third or more votes for Trump more compared to last time in parts of Inwood and all your Bronx neighborhoods. It is a minority, but it's a much bigger minority voting for Trump this year. How do you explain it?
Congressman Espaillat: Well, those same people, 84% of them voted for me. I got to have a heart-to-heart discussion with them, particularly Latino men, although we are being scapegoated as to the reason why Trump won. I say "we," meaning Latino men, because white women supported him. White men overwhelmingly supported him in large numbers, not just by the percentage, nationally. They were really the driving force to getting him elected.
I have to have a heart-to-heart conversation with them to hear them out, to listen to them, to ensure that their issues are being concerned. Frankly, Brian, we live in a city, New York City, that's over 30% Latino, and yet New York City has never elected a citywide Latino-elected or Latina-elected official. In the Bronx, which is the borough of salsarengue, meaning salsa and merengue, you don't have one borough-wide Latino-elected official in Manhattan.
You have, over a decade, the county operation, which is more like Tammany Hall day in, day out, has not ascended a Latino judge to the Supreme Court. When people don't see themselves in government, they take a walk. They see what's out there. That's not identity politics. Some people say, "Well, that's identity politics." Not to me. That's called empowerment. If you're not at the table, if the party apparatus is not propelling you forward, then yes, you're going to go out there and take a walk because you feel you're not being represented.
Brian Lehrer: There must have been some decent number of Trump-Espaillat voters. In addition to what you were just describing about local empowerment in the Democratic Party, I hear you, but did your party at the presidential level also lose touch with parts of your working-class base on crime, on the number of migrants coming in, on the economy, maybe on some identity issues? That's the explanation that many people are giving.
Congressman Espaillat: Well, there was also lots of Trump-AOC voters.
Brian Lehrer: Correct.
Congressman Espaillat: There were also some Trump-Grace Meng voters. I think that our messaging needs to be tighter. I think that we need to listen more to those that are the spinal cord of our party. I think we're not listening to them and we're not providing the opportunity that they want to see. If the city of New York is made up of-- I would say it would be 30%.
If you take in the undercount, it's probably closer than a third. One out of three New Yorkers are Latino. You haven't had a Latino-elected official citywide. You don't have one in the Bronx and you don't have a judge sitting in the Supreme Court in Manhattan in the last decade. That's egregious. Frankly, we could have done worse. Unless we take care of that, it will take care of us.
Brian Lehrer: Do you think that voters in your district who split their votes between you and Donald Trump, voted for both of you, were sitting there thinking, "There aren't any Latino judges around here. I'm voting for Donald Trump"?
Congressman Espaillat: I tell you, if you go to court and you don't see yourself in the bench, yes, absolutely. [chuckles] If your son is being sentenced and you don't see somebody at the bench that looks like you, you think the system is rigged against you. On the issues itself, the pocketbook issues, which is rent, how is it that Kamala Harris was the only candidate talking about housing and she didn't do better? When rent is right at the center of the complaint of many people that are marginal, how is it that the undocumented or immigrants, some immigrants, were themselves rejecting new immigrants?
How is it that we allow that narrative to prevail, to take hold when, in fact, the person that takes care of our mom, the person that takes care of our kids, that mows our lawn, that brings food to our table by working the fields, the person that's out there every day in a small business may be undocumented for sure, is an immigrant? How is it that we allow that to happen, to allow immigrants in a nation of immigrants to be demonized? I think our messaging is off and we should recalibrate it. We start by listening to those that took a walk.
Brian Lehrer: We had a guest yesterday who used to work for Bernie Sanders who said, basically, the Harris campaign failed to mount a working-class economic movement to combat Trump's right-wing populist economic movement. Where was the Biden proposal that was in the Build Back Better bill that failed in Congress for universal pre-K in the United States? Where was the proposal that he was about to release in July for national rent control, paid family leave, some of these other things? Do you agree with that critique?
Congressman Espaillat: I don't know, Brian. I don't know. Kamala Harris had $6,000 for new families that had kids. Kamala Harris had a $50,000 forgivable loan for those who started their first businesses. Kamala Harris had a $20,000, $25,000 down payment for those that wanted to buy their new homes. Come on, that's not progressive. I think that's very progressive. The child tax credit to bring it back at a higher level. These are all legitimate and good proposals that were in her platform. Did we communicate them right? No.
Trump went out and he claims that we become a party of elitists and that he appealed to the working class. Our side claims that we forgot the working class. Which is it? I think that in every district across the nation, there are different circumstances that led to the situation, which, by the way, was not a blowout, wasn't a knockout. It was a knockdown, but a knockdown is not a knockout. I think we can get back up and win in the midterms.
Brian Lehrer: I agree. That's a stat to keep in mind. We talked about that yesterday too, was just a couple of three points in the national popular vote. Nevertheless, listeners, I want to give you a chance here with Congressman Espaillat. Do we have any Espaillat-Trump voters from his Upper Manhattan and West Bronx districts? 212--
Congressman Espaillat: If I had a couple of million followers like AOC has, maybe the answer will be--
Brian Lehrer: Well, you referenced, and we talked about it on the show the other day, that AOC posted on her Instagram. I know there must be AOC-Trump voters out there. Post back and tell me why. She got a bunch of posts and they were generally along the lines of, "You're both for the working class," and things like that. How about Espaillat-Trump voters? Hello, Kingsbridge, Fordham, University Heights, Bedford Park, Inwood. Tell us why if you split your vote that way.
212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text, or with any questions for Congressman Espaillat on anything likely to come as the new government moves in with its agenda for change. 212-433-WNYC, call or text, 212-433-3692. Congressman, just before you came on, I played a bunch of clips of Trump's new appointees or nominees and things they've said in the past. Here's one more. It's Tom Homan, who Trump named to be the so-called border czar. He got this question from CBS's Cecilia Vega on 60 Minutes last month.
Cecilia Vega: Stephen Miller said that this will involve large-scale raids.
Tom Homan: I don't use the term "raids," but you're probably talking about worksite enforcement operations, which this administration pretty much stopped.
Congressman Espaillat: Workplace enforcement. That's a roundup.
Tom Homan: That's going to be necessary.
Brian Lehrer: Congressman, are you expecting workplace raids or other forms of mass deportation in your pretty heavily immigrant district?
Congressman Espaillat: Look, this guy, Tom Homan, a former acting ICE director under Trump, will oversee what they have themselves marketed as mass deportation and aviation security, right? We know what happened last time. We heard the little kids crying because their mothers were-- I myself, my office, helped a mom reunite with her child in New York. She had to come from Arizona. She couldn't get on a plane. She had to get a caravan of vehicles and transport her from Arizona to New York.
To hear kids crying in the middle of the night and calling for their mom and dad because they've been separated is going to, again, shake up America. America was shaken up when they heard that. They decided that that's not who they are. I think that they, once again, will decide that that's not-- Those immigrants that voted for Trump, their opinion will quickly change when their cousin is getting deported or when their small business is being raided.
My brother reminded me the other day how immigration visitors knocked on our door looking for my sister back in the day. Not a good thing. They used to raid parties, Saturday evening parties, or family gatherings. Back in the day, they used to raid family gatherings to arrest and deport people. If we go back to those practices, we will fight back. We will fight back anyway. We think that America is a country and a nation of immigrants. Obviously, if you're a vicious murderer and you're here, I don't mind you being the porter within the confines of the law. If you have a child and they're going to separate you from your child, that's a different story.
Brian Lehrer: You said you'd fight back. How will you fight back?
Congressman Espaillat: We'll fight back. We'll reinvent ourselves. We have the ability as a nation to reinvent ourselves. New York City has reinvented itself every 10 years. By the way, immigrants are front and center of that ability to reinvent yourself. We cannot have a vibrant economy unless we have immigrant labor. That's been proven time and time again. You read the history books. At the center of every time of prosperity is immigrant labor. New York City, my district, the country, must reinvent itself and develop new strategies to fight back. We will do that. We'll put our bodies on the line if we have to.
Brian Lehrer: Tom Homan, that soon-to-be border czar, did say they'll go first after recent migrants with criminal records. Mayor Adams, who you supported in 2021 over the more progressive candidates in the Democratic primary, says the city's sanctuary city law protects too many convicted criminals from deportation now. Does the city need to revisit that policy in your opinion? We're going to be doing a segment after this conversation with you on a lot of that regarding the mayor.
Congressman Espaillat: Well, obviously, I disagree with the mayor on a sanctuary city being done away for working families. What is a sanctuary city? That's the question. A sanctuary city, in my opinion, is when a mom goes to the emergency room, the nurse won't call Homeland Security on the mom. If a family goes to a school because a child is sick and they have to pick him up from school, the principal will not call the law enforcement.
Brian Lehrer: I don't think that's the part that the mayor opposes, though, to be fair to him. I think he's talking about people who are picked up, at least arrested for potentially violent crimes.
Congressman Espaillat: If somebody is arrested and convicted, the country is entitled to enforce the law within the confines of the law and within humane conditions. That's the sovereign right of any nation. We see it happen all over the world. I think what's being presented is something that could be extended to, yes, visiting a hospital and seeing who's there that's undocumented, scooping them up and deporting them, standing outside of a courtroom or court building, arresting and deporting people, maybe because of a traffic infraction. That's excessive. That's not American and we will fight that.
Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Ed in the Bronx, you're on WNYC with Congressman Espaillat. Hi, Ed.
Ed: Hello, Brian. Hello, Congressman. I think something that a lot of folks don't want to acknowledge and admit as a Black Puerto Rican and Dominican man is the amount of misogyny and homophobia that is in our culture and the fact that these many men will not vote for a woman or put a woman in position of power. The problematic behaviors of Trump are alive and present in our cultures and the people's behavior and they relate to him.
That's why they will vote for him. People don't want to acknowledge that and have that hard conversation because, literally, they're not going to say that out loud because they don't want to be seen that way, but that's what it is. It happens. I see it. I hear it, but they won't admit to it in front of people. That's the problem. The Democratic Party or people in power don't want to acknowledge that and address that.
Brian Lehrer: Congressman, talk to Ed?
Congressman Espaillat: Well, then we must have that conversation. By the way, Mexico elected a woman.
Brian Lehrer: Just now, yes. Just recently.
Congressman Espaillat: Just recently. Other Latin American countries have elected women. We must and we should have that conversation. I'm all for having that conversation. I think there was a level of misogyny as well that prevented Harris from being elected. On top of being a woman, she's Black. There was racism or misogyny. No question about it. We must address that in our community.
Brian Lehrer: By the way, Ed, you'll be interested to know. Maybe everybody will be interested to know that next hour, we're going to be doing a segment on so-called "bro media" as a factor during the campaign. Rich in the Bronx, you're on WNYC with Congressman Espaillat. Hi, Rich.
Rich: Hi. No disrespect to anybody, but I just have to be very blunt. I think the main reason why so many Latinos supported Trump is race. I find that the Latin culture is in great denial about their African roots. I've spoken to a Black Dominican doctor, who said that when he was growing up, they told him not to walk like the Haitians. There's a huge divide and the denial of Dominicans in terms of their proximity to Haitians.
Latina women are told not to marry Black people. I feel like a vote for Kamala Harris is an alignment with Blacks. The fact is many do not want to align themselves with Blacks. They want to be white. They want to align themselves with whiteness. Even at their own detriment, the head of the Proud Boys was a Latino. There's this huge denial and just desperation for assimilation to whiteness. I think that's absolutely the main factor.
Brian Lehrer: Rich, thank you. What do you say to that Black Bronxite who sees it that way?
Congressman Espaillat: In fairness, Black men also increase their support for Donald Trump. I don't know what it is to walk like a Dominican, a Puerto Rican, or a Haitian. I don't think there are any distinct characteristics on how people walk that makes them-- and race is not ethnicity. I think that many communities have not been able to grapple with the concept that race is not an ethnicity. You could be a Black Dominican. You could be a Black Cuban. The Black Hondurans are called Garifunas.
The Dominican Republic is a Black nation if you look at the composition of it. Is there racism? There's racism everywhere. There's racism in New York City. A white police officer strangles a guy that calls out for air 11 times and he's acquitted. The Puerto Rican guy that filmed the whole thing is indicted. The DA that failed to prosecute a cop got a promotion and became a member of Congress right here in New York City. I don't think there's a monopoly of racism anywhere. Racism is everywhere.
Brian Lehrer: I want to ask you, I know we've got about five minutes left, about the Elon Musk clip I played in the intro. It was just before you came on. I don't think you heard it, but Musk said he could cut two to three trillion of the $6.5 trillion in this year's federal budget. His department, as you know, will be called the Department of Government Efficiency. In your opinion, is there that much fat without cutting the bone of important government services?
Congressman Espaillat: I call it the Department of Government Exclusion. Government is, I think, a force of good. If you're getting Medicare, Medicaid services, you get them through government. If you get food stamps, you get them through government. If you're being subsidized daycare, you get that from government. The public school system is part of government. Government could be a force and is a force of good. His opinion is highly biased. He is one of those super-rich guys that's getting a ton of tax breaks.
He's in a comfortable position when he's probably paying no taxes and a nurse or a teacher are paying more taxes than he is. He is contributing more to the so-called deficit that they talk about all the time than a teacher or a nurse. He is in a comfortable position to promote the concept that there should be less government when he, in fact, doesn't interact with government. The time that he does interact with government is to get a huge tax break.
Brian Lehrer: Do you have any theories yet on how under the rubric that Musk laid out there, they would try to cut programs that benefit people in your district?
Congressman Espaillat: We will soon find out what their dastardly plan will be to cut services. I tell you, if it's Medicaid and Medicare, which is essential to healthcare access to my constituents, there's something like 246,000 people in my district that get Medicaid and about 118,000 seniors that get Medicare. Altogether, there's close to half of my district, maybe a little bit more, is getting access to public healthcare insurance.
That is so because it is so expensive to get a private health plan. My constituency has to rely on Medicaid and Medicare. There's 116 households in my district. You multiply them by three or four people per household that are getting food stamps. Food security is a critical part of my district. If their efforts is to cut these services, I will be on their face about it because it will impact my constituency disproportionately.
Brian Lehrer: Here's one more clip that expands on that. It's House Speaker Mike Johnson earlier this month on the prospect of Republicans taking the presidency and both Houses of Congress and what would happen then.
Mike Johnson: We're going to have the most aggressive "first 100 days" agenda that anybody's seen in a modern era.
Brian Lehrer: Whoa. Do you have any sense of what that most aggressive "first 100 days" agenda in the modern era might actually be specifically for the House of Representatives where you serve in addition to what we've already talked about?
Congressman Espaillat: I am sure that he is intending to dismantle government operations that provide vital services to districts like the ones that I represent, that he is talking about increasing benefits and tax cuts to the very rich and contributing more to the national deficit. I'm sure he's talking about the so-called Trump deportation plan. I'm sure he's talking about caving in once again to Big Pharma when, in fact, we were able to cap insulin at $35 a month.
We wanted to actually expand the list of prescription drugs to be made affordable to over 20 vital prescription drugs that address cardiovascular problems, that address renal problems, that address obviously diabetes and a host of serious diseases. I'm sure he's talking about all of that. I think we will have a robust plan to confront them and to debate them. I think that we will start by listening to the American people. I think it's time that we take a deep dive and listen to the American people. They will tell us what is of great importance to them and their families.
Brian Lehrer: Congressman Adriano Espaillat, Democrat, just re-elected with 83% of the vote in his district, which includes a lot of Upper Manhattan and parts of the West Bronx. Thanks for joining us today. Really appreciate it.
Congressman Espaillat: Thank you, Brian. I see that we only got calls from the Bronx. The Bronx is in the house today.
Brian Lehrer: Bronx is always in the house around here. Thanks, Congressman.
Congressman Espaillat: All right, take care.
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